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As CEO of the $96 billion Sam’s Club, Latriece Watkins is testing her mettle at the warehouse retailer that produced CEOs for Walmart, Target, and Walgreens

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As CEO of the $96 billion Sam’s Club, Latriece Watkins is testing her mettle at the warehouse retailer that produced CEOs for Walmart, Target, and Walgreens

2

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

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As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says almost no one is being hired—except in sales
MPWMost Powerful Women

The ‘Gilmore Girls’ Are the Highest Paid TV Drama Actors

By
Valentina Zarya
Valentina Zarya
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By
Valentina Zarya
Valentina Zarya
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October 5, 2016, 2:35 PM ET
2006 Summer TCA Day 8
Photograph by Kevin Winter—Getty Images

The Lorelais are raking it in.

According to a Variety survey of actors, executives, attorneys, agents, managers, and other people in the TV business, Gilmore Girls actresses Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel are making $750,000 per episode of the show’s revival.

That makes them the highest-paid actors in a drama series and the second-highest paid actors on TV, after Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, and Johnny Galecki, who make $1 million per episode. The lead cast members on Game of Thrones make about $500,000 per episode.

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Graham and Bledel aren’t the only women on television making big bucks. Claire Danes makes about $450,000 per Homeland episode, while Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman are both getting approximately $350,000 per show for Big Little Lies, Variety reports.

 

Forbes undertook a similar analysis last month, and found that there is a gender pay gap between television actors: The 15 top-earning men brought in $225 million between June 2015 and June 2016, compared to the $208.5 million brought in by the top-earning women.

While not insignificant, that’s much smaller than the gap for actors on the big screen. Jennifer Lawrence, this year’s highest paid actress, made $46 million—compared to the $64.5 million brought in by highest-paid actor Dwayne Johnson.

The smaller gap in TV is due, in part, to the fact that ensemble casts negotiate their salaries together.

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By Valentina Zarya
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